Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns eBook

“I’d like to get in there,” said
Whistler, “without attracting his attention
and that of the man with him. I know he’s
the skipper of that oil boat.”

“How are you going to do that?” demanded
Torry. “They’ll spot our blouses
and caps in a minute.”

“That’s just it. Wish we didn’t
have ’em on,” grumbled his friend.

“Good-night! We’d make a nice
fumble, wouldn’t we, if we didn’t wear
the uniform? What would it be—­a month
in the brig on hard tack and water?”

“Say!” murmured the eager Ikey Rosenmeyer,
“there’s a side door. I’ll
call Abe, the waiter, out there and tell him.
If those fellows have gone into one of the booths——­”

“Bully!” cried Torry. “Maybe
he can sneak us into one next to ’em. How
about it, Whistler?”

“Just the thing,” agreed Morgan, nodding
his head emphatically.

Ikey ran down the alley beside the restaurant while
his mates waited at the corner. The side door
was not used save by the restaurant help; but Ikey
insinuated himself in by that entrance and in half
a minute poked his head out of the door again and
beckoned furiously to the other boys.

“Oi, oi!” he chuckled in high feather,
when they joined him. “We are in luck all
right. Those fellows got a booth, and Abe is layin’
the table in the one next to it, this side, for us.
Come on! They won’t see us.”

“If they take a look out of the curtains they
will,” declared Torry.

“Have a care, now, about talking,” Whistler
advised earnestly. “Say nothing about boats
or the sea. No whispering, remember! Talk
right out when you talk at all.”

“All right, me lud,” said Frenchy.
“Anything else?”

“Yes,” said Whistler grimly. “This
is a Dutch treat. Every fellow pays for his own
eats. Last time we were in a restaurant you all
wished the check on to me.”

At that his mates chuckled much. Each had excused
himself and gone out “just for a minute,”
and Whistler found himself, after waiting half an
hour, expected by the waiter to pay the whole score.

The four got into the booth the waiter had prepared
for them, and Whistler sat with his back against the
partition dividing it from that in which Blake and
his companion sat. Between the clatter of dishes,
the waiter’s calls to the order man, and the
talking of his own friends, Whistler could not hear
much at first. But he knew the two men whom he
suspected were talking in English.

Of course they would not be unwise enough to speak
in German. By this time the German language when
spoken in public places was beginning to cause remark.
Wise Germans, whether friendly or enemy aliens, were
not using it.

One of the voices Whistler heard in the other booth,
however, was distinctly German in its accent.
This he was quite sure was the skipper of the oil
tender. The other man used perfect English.

“They would not be likely to select a man too
obviously German for a big part in any plot,”
thought Whistler. “And that Blake looks
like a suave, well educated fellow.”